Perlisten S4b, D12s subwoofer and SSLR-HGB stands
I got it wrong when reviewed the Perlisten S4b stand-mount loudspeaker in Issue 220. I was not wholly wrong, but in hindsight I underplayed its bass performance.
And, paradoxically, it took a subwoofer to show me how wrong I was. As discussed in Issue 220, the name Perlisten is a portmanteau of ‘PERceptual LISTENing’, the company’s core consideration in designing and manufacturing its loudspeakers and subwoofers. The results of this Perceptual Listening programme centres around creating a loudspeaker that transcends the room in which it is playing.
This is related to the DPC (directivity pattern control) array, which in the S4b combines a 28mm beryllium dome tweeter sandwiched by a pair of 28mm ‘Textreme’ thin-ply carbon diaphragm (TPCD) midrange units, all in an acoustical lens waveguide. This is joined by a 180mm TPCD bass unit, with the woven thin-ply diaphragm said to be almost a third lighter than carbon-fibre drivers of the same diameter. These sit in a CNC-machined front baffle.
This sealed cabinet is cleverly internally braced allowing the mid-bass unit to be isolated from the mid-tweeter-mid array, and every aspect of the cabinet – from the dish shape of the glass-reinforced plastic waveguide to the placement of the drivers in the cabinet – has been the subject of some intensive computer modelling.
